Before You

“I’m supposed to be in Vegas tonight.” I swallowed and looked back at him. “I canceled the flight and the contract.” There was a tightness in my throat that was growing as fast as my mouth was watering. “I canceled a lot of contracts today.”

“Why?”

I shrugged, the movement causing a drip to fall down my cheek. I wiped it away, not even sure when it had formed. “I gave my clients an option. Some took it; others didn’t.”

He didn’t respond immediately. “Because you can’t fly to them.”

I nodded. “I know it’s controlling me. I know I’m letting it win, but … I just can’t.”

I’d talked about it with my therapist and my family and Ally.

Talking helped.

But it didn’t take it away.

The waitress returned to our table, setting a coffee in front of me. I thanked her and wrapped my hands around it.

“How are you doing?” I asked him once she was gone.

“I have a hard time sleeping, but I’m all right.”

He didn’t look thinner than when I’d met him. He wasn’t drunk or disheveled. All I could see were bags under his eyes. He was handling it, and that was inspiring.

“What part keeps you awake?”

His fingers went to his beard, combing through the hairs. “The silence.”

I searched his eyes. “When did that happen?”

Loud was all I remembered. A mix of painful sounds that still made me want to cover my ears.

“The moment after the crash, when the plane stopped moving.” He leaned forward, his hands crossing on the table. “The moment right before I knew you were alive.”

I didn’t know what to say.

I was literally speechless.

If my mind really went there, I didn’t know what would happen to my heart, so I avoided it and asked, “How are you flying? Because I can’t wrap my head around that.”

“I told you, you have to return to your life and your job and stay busy. That’s the only way it’ll get better.”

I was trying to do all of it.

But flying was out of the question.

He stayed in the same position, halfway across the short table, his fingers brushing against his mug when he asked, “What’s the part that scares you?”

I’d been thinking about that a lot, and I’d discussed it in therapy.

At least once a day, I tried to picture myself at JFK, a bag of Twizzlers in my purse, a coffee in my hand. I envisioned myself stepping onto the plane and getting comfortable in my seat.

The second I sat down was when the panic would set in, and I would quit the exercise.

Every time.

“That it will happen again,” I admitted.

“Not surviving it a second time …”

I shook my head harder than I needed to. “I don’t want to find out.”

“I’m going to get you in the air.”

A fluttering moved into my chest. Not the kind I got when I saw him. This was the kind that squeezed my heart and wouldn’t let go.

“We’ll go somewhere close. Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Seaside Heights—one of those. We’ll grab dinner and fly back to the city.”

“There’s a Peruvian restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard called Selva,” I told him. “One of the best I’ve ever been to. Their ceviche is …” I waited for my stomach to grumble, to feel a shooting pain of hunger. But there was nothing. “It’s quite incredible.”

“That’s where we’ll go.”

I wanted nothing more.

But I said, “I can’t,” instead.

“Not now, but you will soon.”

I wondered if today was the start of a countdown or if Flight 88 was the last plane I’d ever be on.

THIRTY-FOUR

JARED

AS I SAT across from Billie at the coffee shop, I watched her struggle with her emotions. Since she’d arrived, there had been tears and silence, even a moment when I had seen her fight a smile that never ended up coming out. Through it all, she’d been so honest. She didn’t sugarcoat her feelings or try to hide them.

Her candor would help her get through this; she just needed more time to heal.

“I worry we’ll get in the air,” she said, “and I’ll completely lose it, making a scene so the pilot turns around.”